CONTRIBUIÇÕES À FORMAÇÃO DE PROFESSORES SOBRE DIAGNÓSTICO TARDIO DO AUTISMO NA PERSPECTIVA DA TEORIA HISTÓRICO-CULTURAL A PARTIR DE ESTUDOS EM PORTUGUÊS, INGLÊS E ITALIANO

Abstract

This study is situated within the research line Teacher Education and Teaching and Learning Processes of the Graduate Program in Education at the Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná. Its object is the late diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), analyzed in light of Cultural-Historical Theory (CHT). It starts from the observation that, although the signs of ASD can be identified in early childhood, many individuals receive the diagnosis only in adolescence or in adulthood. The objective of the study is to analyze the late diagnosis of ASD and its educational and social implications, with emphasis on teacher education. It is a qualitative, exploratory, and bibliographic research, developed through the methodological procedure known as the state of knowledge, using content analysis. The review included national and international publications, in Portuguese, English, and Italian, published between 2020 and 2025. From the perspective of CHT, the study problematizes the predominance of the medical model of disability, centered on the cataloging of symptoms, and adopts a conception of the subject in its totality, articulated with the social model of disability, considering the social, historical, and institutional conditions that cross the processes of human development. The results indicate that the term “late diagnosis” is used in a heterogeneous way, without the existence of a conceptual definition or consensual age delimitation, evidencing the complexity of the phenomenon. A wide diversity was observed regarding the criteria, professionals, and processes involved in the identification of ASD, with predominance of approaches from the health field and recurrent use of standardized diagnostic instruments. There was also a significant growth in academic and social interest in the theme, evidenced by the increase in the number of scientific publications and by the circulation of the term, especially in digital environments. The analyzed studies point out that the absence of diagnosis was frequently associated with experiences of misunderstanding, difficulties, and psychological suffering. On the other hand, the late diagnosis emerges as a relevant milestone in the trajectory of these individuals, enabling greater self-understanding, reorganization of one’s own life history, and reinterpretation of experiences. The increase in ASD diagnoses is presented based on two recurrent and complementary formulations: the expansion of the visibility of autism and the idea of a possible diagnostic epidemic, understood as historically situated phenomena crossed by scientific, social, and institutional transformations that affect the ways of identifying and understanding ASD. In the educational field, the limits of an exclusively clinical understanding of diagnosis become evident, whose basis is the medical model of disability, at the same time that the need for a diagnostic perspective oriented toward learning and the development of the autistic student as a historically situated subject is demonstrated, within a conception of disability grounded in the social model. It is also highlighted that the late diagnosis crosses the school context, in which autistic students may go through the entire educational trajectory without a formal diagnosis, which reinforces the need for teacher education that addresses the importance of an ethical and critical pedagogical stance, permeated by the understanding of inclusive education as a practice constructed in educational relationships, beyond the obtaining of a formal diagnosis.